Books: Mr. Bingle

G >> George Barr McCutcheon >> Mr. Bingle

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"And if he has a recurrence of the--" he began suavely.

"There's no danger of THAT, is there, Doctor? cried Mr. Bingle,
gripping his fingers tightly in his coat pockets.

"Don't hesitate a moment, Mr. Bingle. Send for me. You may depend upon
it, I will come on the instant. I think your poor uncle has been very
badly--er--treated, Mr. Bingle."

"Do you attend the families of his son and daughters--I mean to say,
as their regular--"

"No," said Dr. Fiddler shortly, "I have not that felicity, Mr.
Bingle." And Mr. Bingle thought he understood why Dr. Fiddler felt
that Uncle Joe had been badly treated.

Later on, Uncle Joe blandly asseverated that it pays to have the best,
no matter what it costs. "Why, one of these cheap, rattle-brained
doctors would have let me die, sure as fate. Old Fiddler comes high,
but he cures. If I should happen to get sick again, Tom, send for him
without delay, will you?"

Mr. Bingle said he would, and he meant it. He had jotted down in the
back of a little notebook each successive visit of Dr. Fiddler, and,
consulting it from time to time, had no difficulty in realising that
he came high. Twenty-one visits, at ten dollars a visit, that's what
it amounted to, say nothing of the drug bill, the extra-food bill, the
night-nurse's wages, and the wear and tear on the nerves of his wife,
himself--and Melissa. For, it would appear, Melissa had nerves as well
as the rest of them, and Uncle Joe was the very worst thing in the
world for Melissa's nerves. She very frequently said so, and sometimes
to his face, although she never neglected him for an instant. In
truth, she shared with Mrs. Bingle the day nursing, and seldom slept
well of nights, knowing that the night-nurse was upsetting everything
in the kitchen and pantry in her most professional way.

Of course Uncle Joe did not actually get well. He merely recovered. In
other words, he survived the attack of influenza and heart trouble,
only to go on ailing as he had ailed before. He was quite cheerful
about it, too. They used to catch him chuckling to himself as he sat
shivering over the fireplace, and he seemed to take especial delight
in demanding three eggs for breakfast when every one knew that eggs
were seventy-two cents a dozen. The only compensation they had out of
the experience--aside from the realisation that they were living up to
a principle--was the untiring effort he made to entertain them with
stories of his adventures as a tramp! He gracelessly confessed that he
had travelled under many names, and that he was known by various
soubriquets that would not sound well on Fifth Avenue but still
possessed the splendid virtue of being decorative. There was not the
slightest doubt that he had roamed the land over, and there was not
even the faintest suspicion that he had profited by travel.

And this brings us up to Christmas Eve. With February not far away,
and Uncle Joe lamentably liable to have another attack, the Bingles
curtailed quite considerably in their preparations for the festivities
in honour of the five little Sykeses. They spent but a third of the
customary amount in providing presents, and they were not quite sure
that they were wise in spending as much as that. Uncle Joe went to
considerable pains to convince them that they were making fools of
themselves in throwing away money that might be needed for his
funeral, and absolutely refused to become a party to the affair. He
moped in his bedroom, over an oil-stove, and made himself generally
unpleasant. As for "The Christmas Carol," he had but one opinion about
it, and this is no place to express it.

When he came into the sitting-room after the departure of the Sykeses,
breaking in upon the tender reflections of Mr. and Mrs. Single, he
represented the ghost who might have been at the feast but was, for
some reason, obligingly late.

As he stood over the blaze, rubbing his bony old knuckles, he was a
depressing figure indeed. His gloomy eyes had no reflected glow in
them; his long, stooped frame suggested nothing so much as a weather-
worn scare-crow about which a thousand storms had thrashed. There was
no joy in his soul.

"Yes," he said, as if they had disputed him without reason, "you ought
to be thankful you have no children. What you can see in this
tomfoolery about Christmas Eve is beyond me. Better save your money
for something worth while, that's what I say. Something worth while."

"Well, WHAT, for instance?" demanded Mr. Bingle, suddenly irritated
beyond control.

"Confound you, Tom, do you forget that you owe Dr. Fiddler more than
two hundred dollars?" snapped Uncle Joe, turning on him.

"Oh, I will pay him--I will pay him all right, never fear," replied
Mr. Bingle, shrinking.

Old Joseph Hooper regarded him keenly for a long time before speaking
again. His voice softened and his manner underwent a swift change.

"Tom Bingle, you are the best man living to-day," he said, a strange
huskiness in his voice. "If you were not as good as gold you would
kick me out and--and--"

"Kick you out, Uncle Joe!" cried Mr. Bingle, coming to his feet and
laying his hand on the bent shoulder. "God bless you, sir, I--I--I
ought to kick you out for SAYING such a thing!"

And old Joseph suddenly laid his arm on the mantelpiece and buried his
face upon it, his gaunt figure shaking with sobs.

CHAPTER III

THE DEATH OF UNCLE JOE

When Thomas Bingle made his inspired visit to Geoffrey Hooper in the
interest of peace, he took it upon himself to advise his wealthy
cousin to read "The Christmas Carol" before it was too late, and
formed a permanent and irradicable opinion of the pauper's son when
that individual curtly informed him that he was not in the habit of
reading "trash." Mr. Bingle was patient enough to inquire if he knew
anything about "The Christmas Carol" and Geoffrey in turn asked "who
wrote the words for it," although it really didn't matter, he added by
way of cutting off the reply of his astonished visitor, who naturally
could not have expected to know that his cousin was a consistent
church-goer and knew a great deal about Christmas carols. If it had
been in his power to hate any one, Mr. Bingle would have hated his
solitary male cousin for that stupendous insult to literature. As it
was, he could only pity him for his ignorance, and at the same time
blame Uncle Joseph for bringing up his son in such a slip-shod manner.

It all went to show the trend of the world, however, in this callous
age of ours; it went to show that the right sort of missionary work
was not being performed. Mr. Bingle never forgave Geoffrey for calling
"The Christmas Carol" trash. In the light of what took place
afterwards, he felt that he was completely justified in an opinion
formed almost on the instant the abominable word was uttered.

Christmas fell on a Wednesday. Three days out of each year Mr. Bingle
slept late of a morning: Christmas, Easter Sunday and Labour Day. On
this particular Christmas morning he slept much later than usual; the
little clock in the parlour was striking eight when he awoke and
scrambled out of bed.

Mrs. Bingle always had her coffee in bed. She adhered strictly to that
pleasant custom for the somewhat pathetic reason that it afforded a
distinct exemplification of the superiority of mistress over maid. By
no manner of means could Melissa have arrived at this expression of
luxury.

"Merry Christmas," said Mr. Bingle, crimping his toes on the cold
carpet and bending over to kiss his companion's cheek. She responded
with unwonted vigour, proving that she had been wide awake for some
time.

"I shall get up, Thomas," she declared, much to his surprise.

"It's pretty cold," said he. "Better stay where you are."

"I thought I heard Uncle Joe moving about in the sitting-room quite a
while ago," she said. "Do you suppose he needed a hot-water bottle?"

Mr. Bingle sighed. "If he did, you may be quite sure he would have got
the whole house up with his roars, Mary."

"You will take cold, Thomas, standing around without your--"

"I'll just run in and see if Uncle Joe needs anything," he
interrupted, a note of anxiety in his voice. Pausing at the bedroom
door, with his hand on the knob, he turned toward her with a merry
grin on his deeply-seamed face. His sparse hair was as tousled and his
eyes as full of mischief as any child's. "Maybe it was old Santa you
heard out there, Mary--filling the stockings."

She was too matter-of-fact for anything like that. "If you knew what
was good for you, Tom Bingle, you'd fill that pair of stockings lying
at the foot of the bed instead of running around in your bare feet,"
she said, pulling the covers up about her chin. "I think I'll have my
breakfast in bed, after all."

"That's right," said he, and hurried nimbly out of the room so that
she would not hear the chattering of his teeth. Mrs. Single was
enjoying the paroxysm of a luxurious, comfortable yawn when she heard
a shout of alarm from the sitting-room. She sat straight up in bed.

"Mary! Oh, my goodness! I say, Melissa!"

Then came the pattering of Mr. Bingle's feet across the floor,
followed by the intrusion of an excited face through the half-open
door.

"Wha--what IS the matter?" she quavered.

"He--he's gone!"

"Dead?" she shrieked.

"No! Gone, I said--left the house. Out in the cold. Freezing.
Wandering about in the streets--"

"In--in his night clothes?" gasped his wife. "Don't tell me he has
gone into the street without--"

"Get up!" cried Mr. Bingle, making a dash for his own garments. "We
must do something. Let me think--give me time. Now what is the first
thing to do? Notify the police or--"

"IS HE DRESSED?" she demanded.

"Of course," he replied. "At least he took his clothes with him.
They're not in his bedroom."

"Well, ask the elevator boy. He'll know when he went out. Hurry up,
Thomas. Don't stop to put on a collar. Do hurry--"

"I'm not putting on a collar," came in smothered tones. "I'm putting
on a shirt."

He didn't quite have it on when Melissa appeared in the doorway, wide-
eyed and excited.

"Uncle Joe has disappeared, ma'am," she chattered. "I can't find hide
or hair of him. Did you call, Mr. Bingle, or was it--"

"I called," said Mr. Bingle, getting behind the foot-board of the bed.
"Where is he? Did you--"

"I heard him moving about the kitchen about six or half-past. I peeked
out of my door, and there he was, all dressed, putting the coffee pot
on the stove. I says to him: 'What are you doing there?' and he says:
'I'm getting breakfast, you lazy lummix,' and I says: 'Well, get it,
you old bear, 'cause I won't, you can bet on that,'--and went back to
bed. Oh, goodness--goodness! I wouldn't ha' said that to him if I'd
knowed he--"

"Don't blubber, Melissa," cried Mrs. Bingle. "Ask the elevator boy
what time it was when--"

"Hand me my trousers, Mary," shivered Mr. Bingle, "or send Melissa out
of the room. I can't--"

"He made himself some coffee and--"

"Call the elevator boy, as I tell you--No, wait! Dress yourself first,
you silly thing," commanded Mrs. Bingle, and Melissa fled.

The old man was gone, there could be no doubt about that.
Investigations proved that he had left the building at precisely
sixteen minutes of seven, the janitor declaring that he had looked at
his watch the instant the old man appeared on the sidewalk where he
was shovelling away the snow. He admitted that nothing short of a
miracle could have caused him to go to the trouble of getting out his
watch on a morning as cold as this one happened to be, and so he
regarded old Mr. Hooper's exit as a most astonishing occurrence.
Further investigation showed that he had walked down the six tortuous
flights of stairs instead of ringing for the elevator, and that he was
clad in Mr. Bingle's best overcoat, an ulster of five winters, to say
nothing of his arctics, gloves and muffler.

No one, not even Mr. Bingle, could deny that it was a very shabby
thing to do on a Christmas morning, and for once the gentle bookkeeper
lost faith in his fellow-man. In all probability he would have excused
Uncle Joe's early morning stroll in garments that did not belong to
him had it not been for the fact that the old gentleman also took away
with him all of his own scanty belongings neatly wrapped in the
morning newspaper, an almost priceless breakfast possession from Mr.
Bingle's way of looking at it.

At first Mrs. Bingle insisted on having the police notified. It was so
evident that Uncle Joe had departed without even contemplating an
early return that she couldn't see why her husband shouldn't at least
recover what belonged to him before the old ingrate could get to a
pawn-shop, notwithstanding the family shame that would attend an
actual arrest.

"He is an old scamp, Tom, and I don't see why you should put up with
the scurvy trick he has played on you," she protested, almost in
tears. "After all we've done for him, it really seems--"

"I swear to goodness, Mary, I believe I'd do it if--if it wasn't
Christmas," groaned Mr. Bingle, who sat dejectedly over the fire, his
hands jammed deep into his pockets, his chin on his breast. "But
really, my dear, I--I can't--I just can't set the police after him on
Christmas Day. Besides, he may come back of his own accord."

"He can't go very far on what he will get for your overcoat," she said
ironically. "He'll be back, never fear, when he gets good and hungry,
and he'll not bring your overcoat with him, either."

"My dear, whatever else Uncle Joe may have been, he is not a thief,"
said Mr. Bingle stiffly.

"How do you know?" she demanded. "He may have been in the
penitentiary, for all we know about him. At any rate, he HAS stolen
your overcoat, and your rubbers, and--and--"

"My ear-muffs," supplied Mr. Bingle, seeing that she was taxing her
memory.

"I suppose you regard all that as the act of an honest man," she said
irritably. "I DO wish, Tom Bingle, that you had a little more backbone
when it comes to--"

"Tut, tut!" interposed Mr. Bingle, uncomfortably. He resented her
occasional references to his backbone, or rather to the lack of it.

"--being put upon," she concluded. "Oh, just to think of the old scamp
doing this to you on Christmas Day!" she wailed. "No wonder his
children despise him."

"Well, we'll see what--" he began and then cleared his throat in some
confusion. His wife's appraising eye was upon him.

"What are we going to see?" she inquired, after a moment.

"We'll see what turns up," said he, somewhat defiantly, "I don't
believe in condemning a man unheard. I have a feeling that he--"

"What do you expect to wear when you go down to the bank in the
morning?" she demanded, still eyeing him severely. "Your spring
overcoat? People will think you're crazy. It's below zero."

"Oh, I'll get along all right," said he stoutly. "Don't you worry
about me, Mary. By hokey, I wish he'd come back this afternoon, just
to prove to you that it isn't safe to form an opinion without--"

"There you go, Tom Bingle, wishing as you always do that somebody
would do something good just to show me that no one ever does anything
bad. You dear old goose! Only the meanest man in the world could have
the heart to rob you. That's what Uncle Joe is, my dear--the meanest
man in the world."

Mr. Bingle sighed. He was in no position to argue the point. Uncle Joe
had not left him very much to stand upon in the shape of a theory.
There was nothing to do but to concede her the sigh of admission.

"It's possible," he said hopefully, "that the poor old man is--is out
of his head. Let us hope so, at any rate." And with this somewhat
doubtful sop to the family honour, he lapsed into the silence of one
who realizes that he has uttered a foolish remark and shrinks from the
consequences.

Mrs. Bingle said "Humph," and no more, but there is no word in any
vocabulary that represents as much in the way of sustained argument as
that homely, unspellable ejaculation.

Mr. Hooper DID return, but not until the Saturday following Christmas
Day. He justified Mr. Bingle's faith in mankind to some extent by
restoring the overcoat and the arctics, but failed to bring back the
ear-muffs and the newspaper. He also failed to account for his own
scanty belongings which he had taken away from the flat wrapped up in
the newspaper. As a matter of fact, he did not feel called upon to
account for anything that had transpired since a quarter before seven
on Christmas morning. He merely walked in upon Mrs. Bingle at noon and
told her to send for Dr. Fiddler at once. Then he got into bed and
shivered so violently that the poor lady quite forgot her intention to
berate him for all the worry and trouble he had caused. She proceeded
at once to dose him with quinine, hot whisky and other notable
remedies while Melissa telephoned for the doctor and Mr. Bingle.

"Don't you think I'd better send for Dr. Smith, on the first floor,
Uncle Joe?" said Mrs. Bingle nervously.

"I want Dr. Fiddler," growled the old man. "I won't have anybody else,
Mary. He's the only doctor in New York. Well, why are you standing
there like a fence-post? Can't you see I'm sick? Can't you see I need
a doctor? Can't--"

"I only thought that perhaps Dr. Smith could do something to relieve
you before Dr. Fiddler arrives. You should not forget that Dr. Fiddler
is a great man and a--a busy one. He may not be able to come at once,
and in that case--"

"He'll come the minute you send for him," argued the sick man. "Didn't
he say he would? Do you want me to die like a dog? Where's Tom?"

"He is at the bank, Uncle Joe," said Mrs. Bingle patiently. "Now, try
to be quiet, we'll have the doctor here as quickly as possible."

"I don't want any of your half-grown doctors, Mary, understand that. I
want a real one. I'm a mighty sick man, and--"

"You'll be all right in a day or two, Uncle Joe," said she soothingly.
"Don't worry, you poor old dear. Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Never mind. It's good for you. Take it right down."

Uncle Joe surprised himself by swallowing the hot drink without
further remonstrance. His own docility convinced him beyond all doubt
that he was a very sick man.

"Send for Tom," he sputtered. "Send for him at once. He ought to be
here. I am his uncle--his only uncle, and he--"

"Now, do be quiet, Uncle Joe. Tom will be here before long. It's
Saturday, you know--a half holiday at the bank."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and gently stroked his hot
forehead. For a short time he growled about the delay in getting the
doctor to the apartment; then he became quietly watchful. His gaze
settled upon the comely, troubled face of Tom Bingle's wife and, as he
looked, his fierce old eyes softened.

"Mary," he said at last, and his voice was gentle, almost plaintive;
"you are a real angel. I just want you to know that I love you and
Tom, and I want you to tell me now that you forgive me for--for--"

"Sh! See if you can't go to sleep, Uncle Joe."

"I'd just like to hear you say that you don't hate me, Mary."

"Of course, I don't hate you. How can you ask such a question?"

"I've been a dreadful--"

"Hush, now. Here's Melissa. Did you get Dr. Fiddler, Melissa?"

"Yes, ma'am," said the little maid-of-all-work, appearing in the
doorway with a couple of blankets that she had been warming behind the
kitchen range. "He's coming at once, ma'am, and--" her eyes were
expressive of an immense pity for her mistress--"he says he's prepared
to stay all night if necessary, and he's sent for TWO nurses, night
and day. Besides all that, his assistant is coming with him."

"That's the kind of a doctor to have," said Uncle Joe, with a vast
satisfaction. "None of your cheap, dollar-a-visit incompetents for me,
Mary. If a man's life is worth anything at all, it's worth more than a
couple of one dollar visits from these--What's the matter with you,
Melissa? Don't glare at me like that. Haven't I the right to live?
Can't I ask for a doctor--a mere doctor--without being--"

"Oh, I ain't begrudgin' you a doctor, Uncle Joe," said Melissa
shortly. "It's none of my business. You can have all the doctors in
New York if you want 'em."

"I don't want 'em, confound you," exclaimed Uncle Joe. "I only want a
fighting chance, that's all. I--"

"Nobody's fighting you, is they?" demanded Melissa, whipping a blanket
across the bed with more energy than seemed necessary. She began
tucking in the edges. "I guess we've always been pretty nice to you,
Uncle Joe--every one of us--and I guess we'll keep on being nice to
you, so don't growl."

"That's right, Melissa," said the sick man humbly. "You've been a
jewel, my girl. I--I shall never forget you."

"I'm a soft-hearted fool or I'd ha'--" began Melissa, somewhat
ominously, but checked herself after a quick glance at her mistress's
face. "Try to go to sleep, Uncle Joe," she substituted. "I'll have
some toast and tea for you when you wake up. You--you look as if you
hadn't eat anything since you left, you poor old thing."

"I hope Tom didn't need his overcoat while I was away, Mary," said
Uncle Joe, abruptly changing the topic of conversation.

[Illustration with caption: That's the kind of a doctor to have," said
Uncle Joe]

"He has another coat," said Mrs. Bingle, evasively. "When you feel
better you must tell us what you have been doing for the past--"

"I'm not going to feel any better," said Uncle Joe, quite cheerfully.
"I may hang on for a long time but I'm not going to be any better.
This is the finish for me, Mary. And I'd like you to know that I
didn't come back here to die on your hands without first giving my
children a chance to take me in. I--I tried them once more."

"You--you went to them again?" she cried. Melissa laid the second
blanket across the bed more gently than the first.

"Yes," said Mr. Hooper, his thick eyebrows meeting in a scowl of
anger. "Yes, I talked with all three of them this morning before I
came here. I told them that I was sick and--and--" He choked up
suddenly as Mrs. Bingle began to pat his lean old knuckles with her
soft, warm hand.

"I wouldn't talk about it if I were you, Uncle Joe."

"But I--I want to talk about it," he said, with an effort. "First I
wrote a nice, kind letter to each one of them. Then I called them up
on the telephone and told them all how sick I was, that I couldn't
last much longer, that I didn't want to die in the street, or a
charity hospital, or--the police station. That confounded Christmas
Carol of yours made me relent. I read the thing the other night after
you went to bed. They all asked me where I was and said they would
send an ambulance to take me to Bellevue, and that was the best they
could do for me. After the holidays, when they had a little more time,
they might possibly send me to a sanitarium if I--if I showed any
signs of improvement. That was all there was to it, Mary. I told them--
each one of 'em--that I washed my hands of them, and they could all
go to the devil. They won't do it, of course. People like that never
go to the devil for the simple reason that the devil hasn't anything
to offer them that they don't already possess. And so, Mary, I came
back here to see if you'd take me in. You and Tom have been my best,
my only real friends, and I--I thought you'd give me another chance.
If you feel even now that I am going to be too much bother and
expense, I'll get out. I'll go to a hospital and--"

"Not another word, Uncle Joe," said Mary Bingle, and she kissed his
grim old cheek. "Not another word."

"Thank you, Mary, thank you for that. I--I was just wondering whether
you could stand all of the expense and--"

Melissa broke in sharply: "Of course, we can. My wages can go over
till--"

"And you will not turn me out?" whispered Uncle Joe, his eyes shining.

"Never!" said Mrs. Bingle.

"Never!" said the maid-of-all-work.

Mr. Hooper turned over on his side and was strangely quiet after that.
His nephew came home at three and found himself confronted by two
nurses, two doctors and a cabman who was waiting in the hallway for
his fare. It seemed that Uncle Joe had driven home in a cab, and being
somewhat uncertain as to the duration of his stay in the apartment of
his nephew, instructed the fellow to wait, which the fellow did for a
matter of more than three hours and was prepared to wait a good while
longer unless he got his pay. Uncle Joe's forgetfulness cost Mr.
Bingle six dollars and fifty cents, and he entered the sitting-room
with a heart doubly sore. Of one thing he was uncomfortably certain:
the nurses would cost fifty dollars a week and they would have to be
paid on the dot. They were not like doctors, who could afford to wait.
They were working for a living.

Mr. Bingle's salary at the bank was one hundred dollars a month. He
was an expert accountant, but it did not require the intelligence of
an expert to do the "sum" that presented itself for his hasty
consideration. His small, jealously guarded account in the savings
bank would be wiped out like a flash. And yet he entered the sick-room
with a cheerful countenance and an unfaltering faith in the fitness of
all things. He greeted his repentant Sindbad with such profound
gladness and relief that one might well have believed him to be happy
in having the burden restored to his frail shoulders.

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